Louis-Charles Delescluze

Born Oct. 2, 1809, in Dreux; died May 25, 1871, in Paris. French petit bourgeois revolutionary, member of the Paris Commune of 1871.

Delescluze was a journalist by profession. He played an active part in the Revolution of 1848 and subsequently was commissaire of the provisional government for the departments of Nord and Pasde-Calais. He edited the newspaper Revolution démocratique et sociale. He took part in the demonstration of June 13, 1849, organized by petit bourgeois democrats as a protest against the reactionary foreign policy of President Louis Napoleon. In 1854, Delescluze was sentenced to four years imprisonment and on the expiration of that term was sent to penal servitude in Cayenne, French Guiana, for having been a member of secret republican societies. After the amnesty of 1859 he returned to France. In 1868 and 1870 he was sentenced three times to imprisonment for opposing the government of the Second Empire. On Mar. 26, 1871, he was elected a member of the Paris Commune for the 11th and 19th districts and became a member of its executive commission on April 3 and of the war commission on April 21. On May 10 he became a civilian delegate of the War Ministry. He died on the barricades in Paris during the last days of fighting against the forces of Versailles.